


Fray

by NotTheSmoooze



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cults, F/F, Magic, Occult, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21987070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotTheSmoooze/pseuds/NotTheSmoooze
Summary: The first betrayal changed the rules. This time won't be any different.
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

There are two kinds of people in the world. Well, if I'm honest, I was beginning to suspect there were closer to thirteen, but I'll try and keep this short.

There's the average folk. Persons of varying and sometimes negotiable decency. They are, by all standards, upstanding, or at least standing. They're the overwhelming majority, all born into tight boxes, rarely mustering the strength to crawl out. They see a dark and sinister alleyway and walk past, head down and eyes locked tight to their toes, afraid of what might lie at the end of that left hand path.

Then there's the other kind. The people who reach a breaking point, a moment of desperate longing so deep that they dive headlong into that dark alleyway, knowing, _praying_ , that whatever lies within must be kinder than the world beyond it.

I was the second kind.

The man in front of me, I felt, was decidedly the former. 

The Abbey was an old building, refit and refurnished as a church and a guard station, and Mr. Dugo was its vicar and its head Watchman both. He sat behind a polished wooden desk, brass lamp casting a dim glow across his office's plastered olive walls, flipping through messily stacked papers and tacitly ignoring me. While on duty, the Abbey's guard often wore heavy masks, and the practice had turned Mr. Dugo's face oily and pale. Sitting like that, the dim light of his lamp tinting his skin with the faintest shades of green, he reminded me very much of an upturned pear given arms and legs.

I spoke, again. "If you'll only listen for a moment, I can prove—"

A heavy hand swatted a bundle of papers onto the desk, interrupting me.

"Much as I'd like otherwise, you can _prove_ nothing, Miss...?" 

I pursed my lips. "Mersova."

Dugo nodded. "Miss Mersova. Your witness of the event has been helpful, and the Abbey appreciates your, ah- forthrightness, in this matter." He coughed. " _However,_ you remain a civilian, not a member of the guard. In a few years, with initiation into the Abbey, perhaps—"

It was my turn to interrupt him.

"I _saw_ the murderer, Vicar. Hardly across the street from my home. Would you have me do nothing?"

The memory was still fresh in my mind. The sight from my bedroom window, looking across at the rooftops of the pub opposite my small flat. A woman, the knife in her hand still wet with blood. 

A deep frown crossed Dugo's lips. "Miss Mersova. If you'd like to become a member of the guard yourself, then perhaps we could speak further. Until then, I'd suggest that you do as every other civilian in our fair empire does, and trust these matters to the Abbey."

The man's voice was firm. "Now, if there's nothing else, I have work to be doing."

I grimaced. I wanted information. Information he had. I _didn't_ want to be arrested. Why did this have to be so complicated?

Another angle.

I sighed, my hands on Dugo's desk. "It can't have been so long ago you were a civilian yourself, Vicar. Surely you understand how I feel? I'm concerned for my safety, the safety of my neighbours. Are you sure there's nothing you can share? Anything we could use to protect ourselves?"

Mr. Dugo buried his face in his hands, sucking in a breath. "You have a fire, Miss. I know what that feels like, and I respect it," He paused for a long moment. "But my hands are tied. I'm sorry."

I pulled my hands from his desk, stuffing them into my pockets. "I understand. I'm sorry for being so persistent."

The vicar met my eyes. "Don't be. Keep that fire. Do something with it. I promise you, Miss, this crime will be solved, and this menace will be brought to justice."

I turned to leave, and Dugo dismissed me with a nod. 

"Good day, Mersova. Stay safe."

I didn't look back. 

I shut the door behind me and forced myself to stay calm as I left Mr. Dugo's office, making my way out of the Abbey. 

When I finally found myself outside the building, I released the breath I'd been holding, shutting my eyes in relief. Dropping the concerned citizen act, I swiftly began the hike home, mind buzzing, my thoughts still on the memory of that woman.

There was something unnatural about her. She hadn't moved like a human should — too bestial, animalistic. There was something wild in her, something that belonged in a wolf, not a girl.

I hadn't shared everything with the Abbey. Before the woman ran, knife still bloody, I'd met her gaze from across the street. Even in the dark, the whites of her eyes were a bright yellow, reflecting light like a cat's, and something in her stare sent shivers down my spine. In that moment, I was suddenly a child again, terrified of what might be lurking under my bed.

She was something from a horror story. A horrible fairytale.

Never in my life had I felt so curious.

The Abbey hadn't helped me, but that was fine. I'd become used to helping myself. I smiled, fingers still tucked into my pockets, holding tight to the papers I'd snatched from Mr. Dugo's desk. By the time he noticed they were gone, I'd be done with them, and even then, he'd never accuse a well-intentioned civilian of anything so skullduggerous as stealing from the head Watchman.

I put the thought from my mind. I had a murder to investigate. 

More than that, I had a murderer to meet.


	2. Chapter 2

I made it home just as night began to fall over the city. Walking the streets by dark had once been frightening, and it still was, but there was a new excitement to it. There was a light in my skull, and it pulled my eyes to quiet rooftops and murky corner-nooks in the hopes of seeing the kinds of things that wouldn't come out by light of day.

I hadn't found any, but that didn't mean they weren't there. I'd spent twenty years and change without noticing the strange things that hide in the corners of our eyes. I could only guess how much there was still left to see. My skin prickled at the thought of it.

My door swung open to reveal my home. It was a humble place, grown humbler by weeks of neglect. The sight of things beyond had taken me with a feverish curiosity, and the flat had suffered for it — I'd had more important things to devote myself to than cleaning. Papers lay discarded on every surface, plates sat unwashed in my sink, and the windowsill, curtains shut, was blanketed in a thick coat of dust.

It was home. It would have to do.

I sat down to read the papers I'd stolen from the vicar, hunching forward, eyes close to the page. They didn't reveal as much as I'd hoped. Addresses, sightings. Little to confirm that all the incidents described within were more than your average murder, or even that they were all the same woman. I was disappointed that the Abbey seemed to know so little, but then, I supposed that was a good thing. It wouldn't do for them to be _too_ competent. If the church knights knew too much, other practitioners would be forced to hide themselves even further, and finding them would be all the more difficult.

_Practitioners..._

The word danced on my tongue, rattling against my teeth. Was that what we were? What _I_ was? 

Ever since... ever since I began to realise the truth of the world, the things average folk force themselves to ignore, I hadn't been able to shut it out. Everything I'd thought I was had torn like loose thread, and I'd been forced to sew the pieces together into a new shape. Trouble was, I still didn't know what shape I was supposed to be.

All my research, and I'd found so little. Occult documents were seized and burned by the Abbey, and public discussion of the arcane was more than a crime; it was a unspoken sin, punishable by death. The scarce few mentions of magic I'd come across growing up had taught me that it corrupts, bends the hearts of those near it and twists them into things unnatural; monsters, abominations. 

Now that I'd seen it for myself, I couldn't go on living that way. Magic was a part of me, and it howled like a caged beast when I tried to pretend otherwise.

Was it this way for everyone, once they let magic in? It wasn't like I could just ask. Not when people don't want to hear.

Magic isn't a secret, not really. Everyone _knows_ about magic. It's impossible not to. There's too many mysteries in the world, too much strangeness, and magic was the boogeyman. The Abbey had grown strong from promises to defend against that boogeyman. No vicar or church knight would publicly speak of it, but when a preacher or doomsayer spoke of a terrible threat, invisible enemy, or coming downfall, every audience what they meant.

Everyone _knows_ about magic, but no-one _thinks_ about magic. 

_Thinking_ about magic means looking at the world and admitting that everything you knew was wrong, then starting again with a new perception, new rules. There's a reason most people can't do it. A reason that, when they come close, they shut their eyes, pray until it's gone, then forget it ever happened.

The Abbey was right about one thing: magic is the tool of the desperate, the mad, and the strange. If you were anything but, you'd be too sane to use it.

I grumbled under my breath, fingers drumming against the table in front of me. Grabbing a pen, I scribbled down the addresses I'd found in the vicar's notes onto a single snippet of paper and carefully pocketed it, closing my eyes and turning the tiny scrap over and over in my hand. It was a comfort. A mark of progress. I'd done something, however small, and whether or not the addresses led to anything, the practice would help prepare me for whatever came after.

Taking a breath, I stood and turned to retire for the night, but stopped myself. Facing back towards the table, I snatched the vicar's notes and tucked them under the rug beneath. A temporary solution, but a solution. On the off chance someone came by, I didn't want those documents in clear view.

It was almost funny. I'd never considered myself a criminal, before recently. It probably should've alarmed me, how easily I found myself lying to the church — stealing from a watchman, no less. It didn't. If anything, I was more bothered by the fact I _wasn't_ alarmed.

Whenever I thought about what magic _was_ , a little voice in the back of my head would whisper 'everything'. I hardly knew a thing about it, but even the faintest hint of greater knowledge made me shiver like nothing else could. A few months ago, stealing from the Abbey would've been terrifying. Now, it seemed like a small price to pay.

I found my bedroom, quickly slipping under the sheets, door left open behind me. I'd walked for hours today, and my body welcomed the rest, aches and pains itching in satisfaction as I lay down.

When I fell asleep that night, my mind was buzzing with questions. There was so much I needed to know, needed to see.

When I woke, I was somewhere else.


End file.
